This partial transcript of The Beltway Boys, Feb. 9, was provided by the Federal Document Clearing House. Click here to order the complete transcript.
MORT KONDRACKE, CO-HOST: Here's the Tip Sheet. Item number one, campaign finance is finally going to a House vote next week.
FRED BARNES, CO-HOST: Well, I don't think it's going to be Armageddon if Republicans lose, and I think they are going to lose. Campaign finance reform will probably pass the House. If it's defeated, that will be a victory of liberty over government coercion.
KONDRACKE: I hope it is defeated. I mean, Hastert is trying to scare Republicans off this bill. In fact, Democrats are more, are more dependent on soft money than Republicans are.
Item two, the Senate Judiciary Committee could vote as early as next week on the nomination of Charles Pickering to a federal appeals court.
BARNES: Pickering has horribly smeared by these liberal interest groups, but Democrats in the Senate appear to be going along. To get his nomination reported out of the Judiciary Committee, he needs at least one Senate Democrat to vote for him, and I don't know where that vote's going to come from.
KONDRACKE: Well, I've seen this liberal Democratic wrecking crew work before. He's toast.
BARNES: Yes.
KONDRACKE: Item three, next Saturday President Bush will begin a weeklong trip to Asia. On the itinerary, Japan, South Korea, and China.
BARNES: Well, he has to explain to the South Koreans in particular why North Korea's in the axis of evil. He's got to give a reason other than they're a non-Islamic country. And I think he can make he case. He can just read from that editorial or that column you wrote in "Roll Call" talking about their chemical weapons and their biological weapons and now their refusal to go along with that non-nuclear proliferation treaty.
KONDRACKE: Yes, but the South Korean and the North Korean teams marched in together at the Olympics.
Item four, Al Gore will be giving his first big policy address since the 2000 campaign at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
BARNES: Are you going to go cover it?
KONDRACKE: No, but I'm going to read it avidly.
BARNES: Yes, I'm not.
KONDRACKE: You're not. Oh, I want, I want to write a column about it.
Item five, cancel your Valentine's Day plans. Secretary of State Colin Powell will appear next Thursday at a special global town hall meeting hosted by none other than MTV.
BARNES: What an embarrassing waste of time for Powell to do that. You know, the MTV audience, it doesn't matter, they're not important, nobody cares about their opinion. Why is he appealing to them? Blow them off, that's what I say.
KONDRACKE: They're the youth of America, and Colin Powell...
BARNES: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
KONDRACKE: ... has so much dignity that, that they will not even ask him about boxers or briefs.
BARNES: No, they're the lost youth.
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